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International Horror Film Review: Haxan (dir by Benjamin Christensen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s always interesting to watch Haxan with someone who has never seen it before.

Because this Swedish film was made in 1920 and released in 1922, it’s a silent film.  Because it’s sold as being a documentary, it can be a bit of a hard sell among people who 1) hate to read subtitles and 2) instantly recoil at the idea of watching anything might be a educational.  Even the fact that the film is subtitled “Witchcraft Through The Ages” might not be enough to get some people to set aside their prejudices.

So, what you do is you beg.  You offer to give them popcorn and a Coke if they watch the movie.  You stretch out on the couch, arch an eyebrow and suggest that there might be another reward waiting for them at the end of the film.  You do whatever you have to do and you get them to watch.

Now admittedly, the first part of Haxan does come across as being a bit slow.  The intertitles, which explain that this film was made to examine witchcraft throughout the ages, can come across as being a bit dry.  The numerous scenes about how people used to think that the universe revolved around the Earth and that stars were merely lights hanging in the sky goes on for quite some time.  Personally, I like these scenes.  I enjoy the fact that director Benjamin Christensen actually uses a pointer, as if he’s a lecturer at a university.  But they’re not for everyone.

But here’s the thing, skeptical viewers: KEEP WATCHING!

Because eventually, the film moves on from discussing ancient and medieval astronomy and it starts to discussing why people used to believe in witches and how witchcraft used to be punished and suddenly …. OH MY GOD, IS THAT THE DEVIL BURSTING UP OUT OF NOWHERE!?  Yes, it is.  And yes, that woman is buying a love potion and that monk has become possessed and that witch is flying through the air!

Haxan is an interestingly constructed film.  At the start of the film, it proudly declares itself to be the work of a skeptic.  Haxan is a film that, in its own scholarly way, ridicules superstition.  Those who once believed in witchcraft are compared to those who once believed that the world was flat and that the stars revolved around the Earth.  And yet, the film’s greatest moments are the ones that feature scenes of witches and the devil.  I don’t think this is accidental.  Instead, I think that Benjamin Christensen understood what D.W. Griffith, Ceceil B. DeMille, and Roger Corman understood.  Audiences may want to pat themselves on the back for being pure or rational or whatever but, at the same time, they also want that taste of sin and the indulgence of superstition.  Haxan makes the argument for science but not before indulging in some old time religion.

And it’s a lot of fun.  Haxan is such a visually striking film with it’s taunting devils and its flying witches that one can hardly be shocked that it was initially banned in many countries and, even when it was released, it was often in a heavily censored form.  Watching the film, you can also understand why it influenced future horror directors.  The images are frequently the stuff of nightmares and the fact that the images are silent just makes them all the more ominous.

Haxan is definitely a film that every horror fan needs to see.  Luckily, there’s a Criterion edition for that!  Oh Criterion.  What would we do without you?

Horror Film Review: Cujo (dir by Lewis Teague)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cujo is a such a depressing movie that I can barely stand to watch it.

Cujo, of course, is the 1983 film adaptation of the book by Stephen King.  The book is about a dog that not only gets bit by a rabid bat but also gets possessed by the spirit of Frank Dodd, the serial killer who played a major role in The Dead Zone.  The film abandons the subplot about Frank Dodd and, instead, it just deals with a rabid dog that kills a lot of people and who eventually traps Donna Trentonn (Dee Wallace) and her young son, Tad (Danny Pintauro), is a car for several days.

I have to admit that I’m really not the sort of person who should be watching a film like Cujo in the first place.  When I was growing up, I was terrified of dogs.  According to my family, I was bitten by one when I was just three years old, not that I have any memory of that actually happening.  So, up until I was 18, I couldn’t handle being around them.  Whenever I would walk home from school, I would run across the street if I heard a dog barking at me from behind a fence.  If I was out with my family and I saw a dog approaching, I would hide behind the nearest big person.

I did have one good experience with a big dog when I was about ten years old.  My family was up at the lake and this big, black dog started following us around and it was so friendly that I couldn’t help but relax around it.  My mom was like, “See, Lisa Marie, not all dogs are bad.”  We went to get lunch, leaving the dog behind.  When we returned, the dog was there.  He was excited to see my mom.  He was excited to my aunt.  He was excited to see my sisters.  Then, he took one look at me and started to growl.  I was frozen in fear, just standing there as the dog slowly stood up.  My mom immediately stood in front of me, trying to block the dog’s view while I ran back to car.  Of course, that didn’t work.  The dog started barking and then took off running after me.  His owners then showed up and grabbed the dog just as it was about to lunge at me and then they didn’t even bother to apologize!  Instead, they told some story about how some other girl had thrown a rock at the dog and, as a result, the dog always growled at “little girls.”  They acted like it was no big deal.  (My aunt later told me that she had to grab my mom’s hand to keep her from slapping the dog’s owner when they tried to blame me for what happened.)  For months afterwards, I had nightmares about that dog.

Fortunately, enough time has passed that I’m no longer petrified in fear of dogs though they still make pretty damn nervous.  That said, Cujo, with its growling and killer dog, is exactly the type of film that’s designed to prey on my deepest fears.  And yes, the movie does scare me but I have to admit that I don’t really care much about the people who get killed by Cujo.  Instead …. I feel bad for Cujo.  Yes, even though Cujo scares me to death and I’m not a dog person in general, this movie depresses me specifically because of what happens to the dog.

When we first see him, Cujo is happily chasing a rabbit.  When he gets bitten by a rabid bat, he whimpers a little and I have to say that it breaks my heart to hear it.  I mean, Cujo is just such a cute dog!  And, to be honest, he seems like the type of big dog who maybe could have convinced me that not all dogs are bad.  (There’s a part of me that really wishes that I could relax and love dogs as much as everyone else does.)  But then he gets bitten by that bat and poor Cujo!  Rabies is a terrible disease.

Cujo is a good, straight-forward horror film, one that gets the job done without all of the padding and blather that you sometimes have to deal with when it comes to Stephen King film adaptations.   (Thankfully, nobody casually talks about Shawshank Prison or taking a trip to Derry or any of that other nonsense that seems to come up in most King films.)  Dee Wallace gives a good performance as Donna Trenton, who is trapped in the car and desperate to save her child.  King has said that he felt Wallace deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance and he’s probably right

But my God, I just cannot watch this movie without crying afterwards.  I just feel so bad for that dog.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Escape Room, Happy Death Day 2U, Midsommar, Us

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

This October, we’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!

4 Shots From 4 2019 Films

Escape Room (2019, dir by Adam Robitel)

Happy Death Day 2U (2019, dir by Christopher Landon)

Midsommar (2019, dir by Ari Aster)

Us (2019, dir by Jordan Peele)

 

 

Horror on the Lens: Night of the Living Dead (dir by George Romero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Halloween everyone!

Well, as another horrorthon draws to a close, it’s time for another Shattered Lens tradition!  Every Halloween, we share one of the greatest and most iconic horror films ever made.  For your Halloween enjoyment, here is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead!

(Be sure to read Arleigh’s equally famous review!)

Cleaning Out The DVR: Get Over It (dir by Tommy O’Haver)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I wouldn’t play with that, Kelly,” Berke Landers (Ben Foster) says as Kelly Woods (Kirsten Dunst) playfully aims a crossbow at him.

Kelly laughs and tells him that it’s just a prop.

Berke suggests again that she should probably stop aiming it at him.

Kelly laughs and proceeds to fire an arrow straight into Berke’s arm.

The next scene, of course, is Berke in the back of an ambulance, groaning in terrible pain while Kelly apologizes and a paramedic repeatedly warns Berke not to look at his arm.  In most movies, that would seem like a pretty dramatic plot development and, at the very least, you would expect that Berke would try to avoid Kelly and perhaps have his arm in a sling for the rest of the film.  In the 2001 film, Get Over it, Berke recovers rather quickly, he and Kelly fall in love, and the film ends with Kelly making a joke about how she thought the crossbow was a prop.

That’s just the type of film that Get Over It is.  This is a film from the age when all teen comedies were very loosely based on Shakespeare and they usually had a three word name like She’s All That or Drive Me Crazy or …. well, Get Over It.  Ben Foster has the type of role that would usually go to Freddie Prinze, Jr.  Sisqo has the Usher rule of the supercool sidekick who raps over the end credits.  Shane West speaks with a British accent and steps into the Matthew Lillard role of the obnoxious teen celebrity.  Melissa Sagemiller is the girl who the main guy thinks he’s in love with while Martin Short plays the eccentric and overdramatic theater teacher.  And finally, Kirsten Dunst gets to play another version of her Bring It On role as the quirky and perky girl who wants to do the right thing.  Meanwhile, Zoe Saldana, Mila Kunis, Colin Hanks, Swoosie Kurtz, and Ed Begley, Jr. all have small parts.  It’s a good cast, if nothing else.

Get Over It centers around a high school production of a musical version of A Midsummer’s Night Dream.  Basketball star Berke auditions for the play because he thinks that it will convince his ex-girlfriend, Alison (Sagemiller) to take him back.  Instead, Alison ends up falling for the duplicitous Striker Scrumfeld (West), who has the exact type of personality that you would expect someone named Striker Scrumfeld to have.  Meanwhile, Berke is falling in love with Kelly, who is the sister of his friend, Felix (Colin Hanks).

It’s all very predictable but, at the same time, the cast is absolutely charming and there’s enough quirky humor to make it memorable.  I’ve watched Get Over It several times and, every time that I rewatch it, I’m always a little bit surprised to rediscover just how funny it actually is.  For instance, as Berke leaves Alison’s house after being dumped by her, Vitamin C and a marching band suddenly appear behind him and start to perform Love Will Keep Us Together until Berke finally loses it and starts screaming.  The musical production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream is the perfect parody of every pretentious high school play ever produced and Martin Short cheerfully throws himself into being the director for Hell.  Ben Foster is a bit too intense to be a romantic or, for that matter, comedic leading man but the rest of the cast is enjoyably laid back and fully embrace their quirky roles.

Get Over It may not be a classic but it is a fun 90 minutes.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Winner: The Silence of the Lambs (dir by Jonathan Demme)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, The Silence of the Lambs, I have such mixed feelings about you.

On the one hand, I’m a horror fan and Silence of the Lambs is a very important film in the history of horror.  Back in 1992, it was the first horror film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture!  It even made history by winning all of the big “five” awards — Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Adapted Screenplay!  It was the first film since One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and It Happened One Night to pull that off!

Beyond that, it’s one of the most influential films ever made.  Every erudite serial killer owes a debt to Anthony Hopkins’s performance as Hannibal Lecter.  Every competent but untested and unappreciated female FBI agent owes a debt to Jodie Foster’s performance as Clarice Starling.  Even though the whole criminal profiler craze probably owes more to Manhunter (a film to which Silence of the Lambs is a sequel, though that often seems to go unacknowledged) than to anything else, this Oscar winner still definitely played a part.  I mean, how many people watched Manhunter for the first time, specifically because Lecter mentioned the events in that earlier film in Silence of the Lambs?

Plus, this won an Oscar for Jonathan Demme, one of my favorite directors!  And while I’m sure Jodie Foster would have gone on to have a strong career regardless of whether she had played Clarice Starling or not, it’s generally acknowledged that Silence of the Lambs revitalized the career of Anthony Hopkins.  So for that, we should all be thankful.

And yet, it can be strange to watch Silence of the Lambs today.  All of the imitations (not to mention some ill-thought sequels and prequels) have lessened its bite.  I can only imagine how it must have freaked out audiences when it was first released but I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed the first time that I watched the film.  Looking back, I can see that disappointment was due to having been told that it were one of the scariest movies of all time but, because, I had seen a countless number of imitations, parodies, and homages, I felt as if I had already watched the film.  So, I wasn’t shocked when Lecter turned out to be ruthlessly manipulative and dangerously charismatic.  Nor was I shocked when he managed to escape and poor Charles Napier ended up strung up in that cage.  I’m sure that audiences in 1991 were freaked out, though.

Actually, as good as Foster and Hopkins and Scott Glenn are, I think the best performance in the film comes from Ted Levine, playing Buffalo Bill.  Seriously, Levine’s performance still freaks me out.  It’s the voice and the way he says, “Precious.”  Levine’s performance, I found to be a hundred times more frightening than Anthony Hopkins’s and I think it’s due to the fact that Hannibal Lecter was clearly an author’s invention while Levin’s Buffalo Bill came across like he might very will be hiding in an alley somewhere, waiting for one of your friends to walk by. (Interestingly enough, I had the same reaction when I first saw Manhunter.  Brian Cox did a good job as Lecter but he still came across as a bit cartoonish.  Meanwhile, Tom Noonan was absolutely terrifying.)  Levine has subsequently gone on to play a lot of nice guy roles.  He was a detective on Monk, for instance.  Good for him.  I’m glad to see he was able to escape being typecast.  Admittedly, I do kinda wonder how many serial killer roles he had to turn down immediately after the release of The Silence Of The Lambs.

Still, it’s a good film.  Time may have lessened it’s power but The Silence of the Lambs is still an effective and well-directed thriller.  It’s impossible not to cheer for Clarice.  It’s impossible not to smile at the fun that Anthony Hopkins seems to be having in the role of Lecter.  Jonathan Demme creates a world of shadows and darkness and still adds enough little quirks to keep things interesting.  (I especially liked Lecter watching a stand-up special in his cell.)  It’s the little details that makes the world of The Silence of the Lambs feel lived in, like Clarice’s nervous laugh as she gives a civilian instructions on what to do in case she accidentally gets trapped in a storage locker.  Even the film’s final one liner will make you smile, even though it’s the type of thing that every film seemed to feel the need to do nowadays.  It’s still a good movie, even if it no longer feels as fresh as it once may have.

Icarus File No. 4: Captive State (dir by Rupert Wyatt)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Does anyone remember Captive State?

Captive State came out in March and, before it was released, it seemed like it had the potential to be something special.  The trailer looked good.  The cast was impressive.  Perhaps even more importantly, the film was directed by Rupert Wyatt, who did such a good job with Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.  Surely, if anyone had the talent to create a convincing film about life under an alien dictatorship, it would be Rupert Wyatt!

In fact, my only reason for concern had to do with when the film was being released.  March seemed like a very strange time to be releasing a big “event” film.  Don’t get me wrong.  A March release isn’t as bad as a January or even a February release.  I mean, unless your film is a romantic comedy, you definitely do not want it to be released in either one of those two months.  Those months are where studios dump their worst films so that they can die a quiet death.  March, on the other hand, is when the studio releases films that have the potential to be a success but which they’re still not expecting to set the world on fire.

Of course, there have been exceptions to that rule, as both Wes Anderson (Grand Budapest Hotel) and Jordan Peele (Get Out) can tell you.  So, as Captive State’s release date approached, we were left to wonder.  Would this be another case of a film being better than it’s release date or would this be just another forgettable but not terrible movie that the studio probably spent a bit too much money on?

Captive State, sadly, turned out to be more of a case of the latter than the former.

The film opens with Chicago being invaded in 2019.  Significantly, unlike other recent invasion films, this one doesn’t spend too much time on the invasion itself or Earth’s initial attempts to fight back.  Instead, it jumps forward eight years, to 2027.  The aliens are in control of Earth, though the aliens themselves claim to only be “legislators” who are governing the planet for our own good.  While the majority of Earthlings just seem to be resigned to accepting being conquered as their new normal, there are a few resistors.  There’s also quite a few collaborators.  The tricky part of life in 2027 is figuring out who you can and can not trust.

There’s a lot of characters in Captive State and, at times, it can be difficult to keep track of how everyone’s related and who is working for who.  However, that seems to be intentional on the film’s part.  Rather than telling a conventional tale of alien conquest, Captive State sets out to be a serious exploration of what life would be like for the people living under the thumb of not just an intergalactic dictatorship but actually any dictatorship.  The Legislators rule by fear.  The collaborators have their own individual reasons for collaborating but, now that they’ve declared which side they’re on, there’s no going back for them.  One way or another, they’ve sealed their fate.  The same can be said for those in the rebellion.  Meanwhile, most people are just trying to not get caught in the crossfire.

And the thing is …. you want the film to work.  It’s an intriguing idea and how can you not respect that fact that Wyatt wanted to try to do something a little bit different with his story of alien invasion?  But sadly, the film never works the way that you’re hoping it will.  The film tries to do a lot in just 109 minutes.  In fact, it probably tries to do too much and, as a result, there’s little time to get to know the characters, the majority of whom come across as being underwritten and with murky motivations.  Captive State hinges on the actions of a detective played by John Goodman but the film itself doesn’t seem to be sure of who Goodman’s supposed to be.  Hence, the film’s final twist seems to come out of nowhere.  It’s hard not to feel that the ideal way for Captive State to have told its story would have been as a 10-episode miniseries on HBO.  Trying to stuff all of this into under two hours of running time just doesn’t work.

And it’s a shame, that it doesn’t.  Ambition should never be faulted.  If only the results, in this case, lived up to the ambition.

Previous Icarus Files:

  1. Cloud Atlas
  2. Maximum Overdrive
  3. Glass

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Dead Night (dir by Brad Baruh)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hey, I’ve got an idea!  It’s Spring Break so why don’t we spend it in a cabin in the middle of a snow storm!?

Great idea!

Let’s go!

Oh, look — we’re at the cabin now and there’s some strange woman passed out front.  What should we do!?

Hey, let’s bring her inside!

Good idea!

Uh-oh, the woman’s inside and she’s alive but she’s acting kind of weird!

Hey, let’s eat dinner!

Now, in all fairness to the characters in 2018’s Dead Night, things are a bit more complex than that.  It’s not just that they decided to go up to a snowy cabin for Spring Break.  The cabin is actually supposed to be a therapeutic location.  James Pollack (AJ Bowen) is dying of cancer and it’s felt that the cabin will not only ease his pain but perhaps increase his life.  If nothing else, the wilderness will bring some sort of inner peace.  Accompanying James are his wife, Casey (Brea Grant) and their two teenage children, Jessica (Sophie Dalah) and Jason (Joshua Hoffman), and Jessica’s best friend, Becky (Elsie Luthman).

As for the mysterious woman who shows up out front of the cabin, they’re just trying to be nice when they invite Leslie Bison (Barbara Crampton) to stay in the cabin with them.  Even though Leslie can’t tell them how she ended up at their cabin, the Pollacks are not the type to just allow someone to die in the snow.  Really, we should all be more like the Pollacks, I guess.

Still, Leslie does turn out to be really obnoxious.  She makes inappropriate jokes.  She rudely asks which member of the family is dying.  She blows kisses at Jason and smirks when Jessica announces that they can’t eat until they’ve said grace.  In fact, the family is on the verge of kicking Leslie out when …. well, things happen.

What things?  We get some hints from a terrifically over the top true crime show, segments of which appear throughout the movie.  Hosted by Jack Sterling (Daniel Roebuck), the show deals with the question of how a perfect wife and mother like Casey Pollack could eventually go insane and chop up her family and friends with an ax.  Sterling tells us that, even though Casey called several people and told them that she had found a strange woman outside the cabin, the police were convinced that this was all just a part of an elaborate lie.

Hmmm….so, I guess we know what’s going to happen, right?

Well, no,  Not quite.  It turns out that the true story is a little bit different from what we might have seen on television.  For instance, Jack Steling’s show says nothing about the weird incident that happened in the early 60s, when a young woman got lost in the wood and was apparently impregnated with a piece of a tree….

If you go over to this movie’s imdb page, you’ll find a lot of angry reviews from people who felt that this movie didn’t have a real plot and that it was too gory but I don’t know.  I kind of liked it.  I mean, it’s a horror movie about people stuck in the middle of the woods.  What exactly are you expecting to get other than some nonsensical ax murders?  I mean, yes, the film doesn’t make complete sense but the cabin and the woods are both wonderfully creepy locations and the film also featured the great Barbara Crampton playing a …. well, I won’t spoil it.  Plus, I watch a lot of true crime television and I can tell you that this film’s satire of the particular genre is spot-on!

So, what can I say?  Suck it, imdb.  I kinda liked Dead Night.

International Horror Film Review: Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell (dir by Hajime Soto)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The world’s ending and does it really matter?

The 1968 Japanese film, Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell (love that title!), opens with an airplane flying across a blood red sky.  Why has the sky changed colors?  The pilots aren’t sure and the passengers barely notice.  Indeed, the passengers are more concerned with their own problems.  There’s the arms manufacturer who is desperate to land his next big contract.  There’s the professor who views the world with professional detachment.  There’s the corrupt politician who only cares about increasing his own power.  There’s the terrorist who is traveling with a rifle hidden in the plane.  There’s the other terrorist who has a bomb and who may or may not be working with the first terrorist.  (It’s a dangerous world out there.)  And then there’s the American war widow, Mrs. Neal (Cathy Horan), whose husband has just been killed in Vietnam.

When a report comes over the radio that one of the passengers has bomb, the crew searches everyone’s bags.  “Why are you searching our bags!?” the arm manufacturer demands.  “There was a mix-up at the airport and we may have the wrong bag on this flight,” the co-pilot lies.  Finally, when the co-pilot and a stewardess come across a metal box in the back of the plane, they think that they’ve found their bomb.

Instead,they’ve found the first terrorist’s rifle.  He uses that rifle to hijack the plane and then he shoots out the plane’s radio.  Unfortunately, this couldn’t have happened at a worse time because it turns out that the Earth has just been invaded by aliens!

A UFO causes the airplane to crash on a uncharted island.  The rifle-toting terrorist is possessed, Thing-style, by one of the aliens.  The passengers start to bicker among themselves.  Who is to blame for the plane crash?  The terrorist or the pilots?  Who is to blame for the aliens invading, the aliens or the humans?  The professor theorizes that the aliens saw that Earthlings are constantly at war and they decided that this would be a great time to invade the planet.  In fact, as the professor goes on to speculate, perhaps we have brought this on ourselves.  Maybe we deserve to be invaded.  The humans on the island proceed to go out of their way to prove the professor correct.

Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell plays out like a pop art alien invasion film.  The colors are bright and vibrant.  The imagery is often surreal, with the alien literally oozing out of the forehead of the people that it has possessed.  By the end of the film, entire cities are full of shriveled up dead bodies while spaceships glow in the distance, their pulsating lights making them resemble the atomic mushroom clouds that have haunted Japanese horror and science fiction cinemas ever since World War II.  While the surviving passengers debate whether or not the Earth deserves to be saved, we get red-tinted inserts of assassination and war.  The passengers may not be sure whether or not Earth deserves to survive but it’s obvious the filmmakers have made up their minds and they, for one, welcome our new alien overlords.

How about you?